L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, MAY 22, 2014 L'Italo-Americano THURSDAY, MAY 22, 2014 www.italoamericano.com 10 Dear Readers, A May mix of Italian connec- tions for you: Alberobello, located in the Puglia regione (Bari, Andria, Barletta, Trani, Brindisi, Foggia, Lecce, Taranto) of Italy is a UNESCO World Heritage site, dotted with more than 1,500 bee- hive dwellings called trulli. Many Readers, who have "roots" in Puglia, have visited Italy through the years but have never visited the World Heritage site of Alberobello. If you are vacationing in Southern Italy plan to visit Alberobello this year. In the heart of the Murge hills, between Bari and Taranto, Alberobello has a dense concen- tration of trulli, some of the odd- est dwellings in all of Europe. According to legend, the trulli date from a 16th-century decree forbidding the use of mortar in building a roof, supposedly in order to exploit a tax loophole. The necessary result was the concentration of squat, small, one-story houses with steep, conical roofs made of flat stones. You'll spot these curious build- ings throughout the region all the way to the suburbs of Bari, but Alberobello's old sections are composed almost entirely of them. Many of the trulli are still inhabited, and most of the rest are in the business of selling things to tourists. Of course, the roofs have been sealed with plas- ter from the inside, but they still look the same from the outside, often decorated with Christian or pagan symbols. Wherever you see an "entrata libera" sign, feel free to have a peek inside and maybe buy an "I love you trulli" miniature souvenir. *** Books, with no size or color to worry about, always make great gifts. If you have anyone with "roots" in "Sicilia" on your gift list you can't go wrong with any of Andrea Camilleri's "Inspector Montalbano Mysteries". And thanks to the popularity of Inspector Montalbano, as played by Luca Zingaretti in the T.V. Movies produced by RAI Radiotelevisione and Palomar, Andrea Camilleri has become one of Italy's most famous contemporary writers. His Montalbano series, adapted for Italian television, has brought him and fans on both sides of the Atlantic and have been translat- ed into over nine languages. The Sicilian adventures of inspector Montalbano are always a joy, but if you're not familiar with his work try him with these titles in paperback first (The Scent of the Night, The Paper Moon, The Patience of the Spider, August Heat, all $4.98 each from Daedalus Books, 1- 800-395-2665,9am-8pm EST). With his sardonic take on small-town Sicilian life, his gus- tatory predilections, his delicate balancing act between the offi- cial and unofficial worlds he inhabits, and his genius for deci- phering the most enigmatic of crimes, Inspector Salvo Montalbano has won millions of fans worldwide. First appear- ing in Italian in 1994, and in Stephen Sartarelli's superb anno- tated translations since 2002, Andrea Camilleri's sly and witty series transports you with a sense of humor that fills the air of Sicily and is real Reader treat! *** Here are the three book titles I ordered and have recently been enjoying: The Patience of the Spider: Andrea Camilleri (Stephen Sartarelli, translator) In this eighth mystery starring Andrea Camilleri's Sicilian detective, Montalbano slowly recovers from the injuries he sus- tained during his last case, thanks in part to the ministra- tions of his girlfriend Livia. Gradually he shakes off his tor- por when a local girl goes miss- ing and the whole community is thrown into an uproar- but way would anyone kidnap the daugh- ter of a poor family, unless they were sure there was a hidden for- tune? *** The Paper Moon: This ninth installment of his popular mys- tery series finds the moody Inspector Montalbano further beset by the existential questions that have been plaguing him of late. But he doesn't have much time to ponder philosophy before a gruesome murder commands his attention. A man has been shot in the face at point-blank range, with his pants around his ankles. Add in two evasive women as prime suspects, some dirty cocaine, mysterious com- puter codes, and series of threat- ening letters, and things quickly become very complicated at police headquarters. Andrea Camilleri *** August Heat: The lazy month of August in Sicily is far too hot for any murders to be commit- ted, as Inspector Montalbano assures his girlfriend Livia in this tenth book in Andrea Camilleri's delightful series. But when his friend's young son goes missing, it seems Livia and the inspector's vacation will be spoiled after all. A secret apart- ment and a grisly find in an old trunk are just the beginning, as Montalbano looks for the boy while coping with the sweltering heat, the suspicious dead of an Arab laborer, and the lure of a beautiful girl. *** Italian American Golfers in Northern California, with a lot on the ball will be playing Golf on Wednesday, June 4th at the Italian Community Services and Immaculate Conception Academy Golf Tournament, Harding Park Golf Course, 11am check-in and lunch, 12:30 shot- gun start, 6pm no-host cocktails followed by dinner. $250.00 fee includes cart, green fee, lunch and dinner. Hole sponsorship opportunities available. Register atwww.italiancs.com; Anna Maria Pierini, ampierini@ italiancs.com, (415) 362-6423, ext. 11; Patricia Cavagnaro, ICA pcavagnaro@icacademy. org, (415) 824-2052 ext. 31. Register now for this Day of Fun in the Sun that will benefit pro- grams at Italian Community Services and Immaculate Conception Academy. *** I've reviewed factors that are important in determining an immigrant ancestor's name as it was used in Italy and Sicily. Once the name is known it can be used in searching for other information about the per- son, that is, the other genealogic 'keys': date of immigration, date of birth, and town of birth. Future columns will con- tain many references to various types of American and Italian records, which often are indexed so that a record may be searched for by a person's name, address, or other identifier. Such searches may be under- taken at local libraries, church- es, civil offices, genealogic soci- eties and other repositories of paper documents, or they may be done on line using sites like the free Mormon church site https://www.familysearch.org/ or the subscription site http:// www.Ancestry.com Whatever form the search takes, be forewarned that even though you may think you know the 'correct' spelling of an ancestor's name or place of ori- gin or residence, it may be mis- spelled or mis-recorded in the documents you are searching. Consider these errors to watch out for on records and indices: Mis-spelling on original doc- uments. Often our ancestors were illiterate. This meant that a name on a record, even an origi- nal record, was spelled in what- ever way the clerk making out the document thought it should be spelled. If the record was made by someone who spoke a different language than your ancestor, as in census docu- ments, even more errors could be introduced. Mis-spelling by computer transcribers. When records are transcribed into on-line comput- er databases, the work is done by 'indexers' who read the original document and 'digitize' the information, so that it can be searched for by a person's name. An image of the record is placed on line, and some sort of search engine is used for you to enter the name. If the name you enter is in the data base, the proper image of your ancestor's document is displayed. However, the indexer may not be an Italian-speaker, and may not recognize archaic handwrit- ing, so he may have transcribed the name incorrectly. If so, searching with the right name may not yield results! Mis-spelling by sound. If the record is one for which an ances- tor (even if literate) pronounced his name, but it was written by another person, as in a census or license application, that person may have mis-heard the name: Andolino for Andolina, De Marco for Di Marco, etc. Mis-spelling by looks. An indexer unfamiliar with archaic handwriting and with Italian names may mistake one look- alike letter for another (u for n, j for i, i for e, etc.) A common error is to transpose i and u, spelling GUIDO as GIUDO, GIUSEPPE as GUISEPPE, and so on. Switching given and sur- names. Italians often said their surnames first, as in Alessi Rosa, Coniglio Gaetano, etc. An English-speaking clerk or indexer unfamiliar with this custom, and with the names themselves, might write the first name as the surname, and vice versa. The moral of all this is that when you search for an ances- tor's record by name, don't give up if you don't get results for a name that you "know" is right. Try spelling the name dif- ferently, as it would sound, or replace "i" by "e", or try the per- son's last name as the first name in the search, etc. Be flexi- ble. You may be surprised to learn how some of your ances- tors' names were listed! Coniglio is the author of the book The Lady of the Wheel, inspired by his Sicilian research. Order the paperback at amzn.to/racalmuto or the e- book at bit.ly/LadyOfThe WheelKindle Coniglio's web page at bit.ly/AFCGen, has helpul hints on genealogic research. If you have genealogy questions, or would like him to lecture to your club or group, e-mail him at genealogytips@aol.com Finding Our Immigrant Ancestr y – How do you spell that? ANgELO F. CONIgLIO

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